Enigma LSD Press Review

* ENIGMA
Love Sensuality Devotion
The Greatest Hits

"The soul belongs to God,
but the body belongs to us"
Rasputin

When ENIGMA was heard for the first time eleven years ago, pop culture changed. Because Michael Cretu did not follow trends but set them. Like a Noah's Ark, the "Sound ship" ENIGMA has sheltered the most differing cultures from the most various areas of all the earthly continents in rhythm, sound and voices still to this day. ENIGMA is a self inventing continuity. Should we dance or dream, suffer or love, meditate or make music? ENIGMA sends out a different signal to each receiver.

The four ENIGMA albums, "MCMXC a.D." (1990), "The Cross Of Changes" (1993), "Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!" (1996), "The Screen Behind The Mirror" (2000) sold close to 30 million copies. The debut stayed on the American Billboard Charts for five years. More than 50 number 1 chart positions and 85 platinum awards have made ENIGMA the most successful German musical project ever world-wide.

For "Love. Sensuality. Devotion. The Greatest Hits", Michael Cretu selected 16 landmark tracks from the previous four albums which reflect his "Memories Of The Future".

16 songs sending out signals, overcoming boundaries, 16 dreams creating images never seen before. 16 stories telling a much larger story. The story of life. And it's is told in the only language understood all over the world. Music.

"Heart is the engine of your body
but brain is the engine of life"
Enigma

The journey to another musical dimension begins with the new song "Turn Around". A prologue to the sound universe around the planet of ENIGMA. "Turn Around" plays with fragments and quotes of the four ENIGMA generations in order to create a totally new sound sphere with an unexpected easiness. We let ourselves be taken away voluntarily, we're swept along without a break to the end of the album. "Evolution, too, happened without a break. I think the emotions evoked when listening to music shouldn't really be interrupted, either," Michael Cretu explains. So, on "LSD. The Greatest Hits" the music flows on for 76:30 minutes, merges, creates layers, melts together. Time never stops ... Like a musical mosaic, the tracks put together in their new constellations create an entirely new general picture of the "voice of ENIGMA", a "turn around".

Intentionally ambiguous, Michael Cretu has chosen the special title for his hit collection, "LSD". "I'm addicted to music. So, music is like a drug for me. And others, too, will be able to go on a trip with this album, in a good sense." The ciphers stand for "Love. Sensuality. Devotion". Cretu: "For me these are elementary terms of happiness, of a fulfilled life." That the mastermind of ENIGMA stays invisible in the background is the intentions of the concept. "This music does not need a face, the music is the face. Only emotions are important. The pilot of the musical spaceship ENIGMA must not be visible."

"The path of excess leads to the tower of wisdom"
William Blake

The opus so far of the most important German musical project wouldn't be complete if there wasn't a platform for the best and most impressive remixes. "Dancing makes it possible to live one's most original energies and express one's emotions. So, "dance" has always been an important part of the ENIGMA concept." No turntable, no mixing desk, no club, no dance floor anywhere hasn't felt the ENIGMAtic vibes at least once. Parallel to the unique hit collection, the album "Love. Sensuality. Devotion. The Remix Collection" is released: nine incredible tracks of sounds, tunes and rhythms offering the best DJ material and dance matter for more than an hour. A truly fascinating 10:27 min. mix of "Turn Around" opens the album with tomorrow's club classic.

It is surprising how much ENIGMA has influenced the sounds and rhythms of club culture. No other artist has been copied, quoted and adapted like Michael Cretu. "That ENIGMA has been used by so many only shows that it was really something new. Even though it's irritating, it's still a compliment."

"Turn Around and you will see
life is like a roundabout a kind of LSD"

But the odyssey of ENIGMA will not end in 2001. "The Greatest Hits" and the "Remix Collection" will only be a preliminary final statement of the "alchemist" Michael Cretu in regard to his artistic enigma which only he can solve: "The first four albums are like a closed circle for me. "Love. Sensuality. Devotion" document the end of this first phase of ENIGMA. The first volume is closed now. But I promise there'll be a second one. ENIGMA's music is like a never-ending dream. A beautiful one, too. When you stop dreaming you die. And I have many unfulfilled dreams yet."

Virgin Press Release Oct 2001